LSSC legends: Peter Shilton

Saints fans received tremendous service out of Peter Shilton’s 5 year stint at The Dell as he gave tremendous confidence to a more youthful Saints side that achieved runner-up in Division 1 and two FA Cup semi-final appearances. But there will always be a tinge of regret that his signing coincided with Kevin Keegan’s sudden departure to Newcastle as it was largely thought that a top class goalkeeper was the missing link from the star-studded team of the early eighties.

July/August 2010 – Peter Shilton
Peter Shilton first came to the attention of Saints fans at The Dell as a teenager for Leicester City in October 1967 when he scored with a drop-kick against Campbell Forsyth. He had been Leicester’s youngest ever debutant and at Filbert Street had been Gordon Banks’ debutant before first taking his Leicester place and then his England position. Banks was sold onto Stoke City – a move that Shilton would eventually also make.
At Stoke, and particularly Nottingham Forest, Peter became known as the best ‘keeper in the world , with his fanatical dedication to fitness and training becoming legendary.
He represented England a record 125 times and had it not been for Ron Greenwood’s rotation policy with Ray Clemence, that number would have surely have been many more.

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After winning European Cups honours at the City Ground, Southampton enticed him to The Dell for a fee of £325,000 and Saints fans wallowed in the hitherto unprecedented luxury of watching the country’s finest goalkeeper in action.
Positionally faultless, with impeccable handling, Peter captained England during the 1986 World Cup finals only to be undone by Diego Maradona’s ‘hand of god’. During his five year spell at Southampton, he overtook Mike Channon’s record as the club’s most capped player.
Losing none of his agility as he moved towards his forties, Shilton’s reputation alone was often enough to unnerve opposing forwards in one-to-one situations, and his dominating presence did much to help the burgeoning career of the young Mark Wright.

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In June 1987 he decided to move on and with the club happy to trim an increasingly excessive wage bill, he joined Derby for a bargain £100,000.
Maintaining his immaculate standards at The Baseball Ground, Shilton overhauled Terry Paine’s all time league appearance record and then overtook Bobby Moore’s number of England games, gaining his 109th cap against Denmark in June 1989. The following summer Peter played his part in England’s surprise run to the 1990 World Cup semi-final before deciding to retire from international football..
His thousandth League game came on 22 December 1996, playing for Leyton Orient versus Brighton, which was screened live on Sky Sports and was preceded by the presentation from the Football League of a special edition of the Guinness Book of Records to Shilton. He played five more matches before retiring on 1005 league games at the age of 47. By the time of his retirement, he was the fifth oldest player ever to have played in the Football League or Premier League.

Shilton tried his hand at management with Plymouth in 1992 which was followed by resuming his playing career with a number of clubs; largely reduced to substitute over this closing period.
Shilton received the MBE, and later the OBE, during his playing career for services to football. In 1990, following his retirement from international football, he was awarded the prestigious Order of Merit by the PFA and a year later he received the Football Writers’ Tribute Award. Shilton was made an Inaugural Inductee of the Englisg Football Hall of Fame in 2002 in recognition of his impact on the English game as one of the greatest English goalkeepers.